Gazing in the Mirror

December 12 - Sacred Music

All deep things are song.
It seems somehow the
very central essence of us,
song; as if all the rest were
but wrappages and hulls !
~ Thomas Carlyle

Always there is that Eternal
Voice, forever whispering
within our ear, that thing
which causes the eternal
quest, that thing which
forever sings and sings.
~ Ernest Holmes

I have always loved the music that comes with this holiday season. There is a sense of specialness to it and the lyrics are full of optimism and hope. Throughout all time and occurring in all cultures and religious traditions people have sought intimate contact with the Divine through music. One year my family attended a live performance of Handel's Messiah by the St Louis Symphony and learned that they had first performed that piece in 1904. There is a tradition associated with its performance where everyone stands up at the Hallelujah chorus because a king once did that. It is interesting that although I was familiar with those "Hallelujah" lyrics and perhaps one or two other pieces in the concert I discovered that I was not very familiar with the overall composition. I am more familiar with the Nutcracker composition by Tchaikovsky because that ballet was a yearly holiday tradition in my birth family.

Christmas carols connect me with times past and a sense of humanity's continuity. After marrying my husband Stephen I grew fonder of Good King Wenceslas. He was a 10th-century Catholic Duke in Bohemia also known as Vaclav the Good. The act of charitable giving connects that carol to the theme of Charles Dicken's A Christmas Carol as well as the tradition of Boxing Day. "Therefore, Christian men, be sure, Wealth or rank possessing, Ye who now will bless the poor, Shall yourselves find blessing." Another song that developed personal meaning for me was Ave Maria whose composer used a musical composition of Bach's. It had heartfelt meanings for me personally during the years I was attempting to conceive my oldest son. Similarly "What Child Is This ?" took on personal meaning for me during the Christmas that I was 7 months pregnant with my oldest son.

For my own self any music and lyrics can function like a sacred text within my heart and soul bringing me closer to that core essence that is the eternality of my being. Christmas carols have become intertwined in my own memories with a Catholic midnight mass and the soft glow of the luminarias in the desert Southwest or with strings of colored lights on houses or trees. Christmas carols celebrate the cycle of Life that is renewed in the birth of children and the devotion of their mothers as well as making a cold snowy dark time of year feel warmer and more light filled. Many songs celebrate the weather of the season – White Christmas, Sleigh Ride and even the playful Baby It's Cold Outside or the flow of ice skates on frozen water in River.

Music expresses the universality of humankind in a language that can transcend the cultural differences of words. It may be true that the emotional response that is stirred within the listener has more to do with the listener's own reaction and circumstances than to the musicality itself but that ability to facilitate a reaction seems dominant to no reaction at all. Aaron Copland wrote regarding music that it has embedded within it "basic reactions such as tension and release, density and transparency, a smooth or angry surface, the music's swellings and subsidings, its pushing forward or hanging back, its length, its speed, its thunders and whisperings—and a thousand other psychologically based reflections of our physical life of movement and gesture, and our inner, subconscious mental life".

I find that singing carols amplifies the emotional feelings the songs elicit within me by bringing the physicality of the movement of breath with the heart's involvement. I saw during the performance of The Messiah real physical effects that singing the piece had on the soloists and the chorus. That wave of emotional importance translates to those listening and when in a live performance the energetic atmosphere has collective effects on both performer and audience. The continuity of ancient carols and music captures and inspires feelings connected with other times, places and themes. Music generates within my own self not only a sense of reverence and awe but of hope and faith in times of sorrow and despair. Music allows the expression of huge and inexplicable emotion from within our own self that can cause us to sob or even allow a stream of tears to flow in that cleansing action they provide.

The lyrics of songs create for me a kind of flowing and living roadmap through life illustrating something deep within me which music has the power to bring up into my surface thinking. It was interesting how Handel used only brief snippets of sacred text repeated over and over to different strains of musical composition in order to expand upon them and anchor them into the human heart that is listening. Experiencing The Messiah at Christmas connects me with a multitude of human beings the world over who are also performing or listening to the same emotional outpourings of a timeless nature. I take advantage of the holiday season to listen to music that never grows old as I only listen to it for a brief period of weeks this time of year. I love that this traditional music returns to me annually to happy feelings, like celebrating a birthday or anniversary can do, while marking time's passage like a clock or calendar does.

~ perspective

The music of the holiday season
connects me to all time and all
circumstance in lovely ways.
I appreciate the way that
holiday carols give relevance
to what might otherwise be
a bleak time of year.
The songs of the season glow
within me with the same
emotional impact on my senses
that the multicolored lights
which decorate Life wherever
one goes have on my eyes.
The sacred music of all time
lives within me as I take it
in emotionally and deeply into
the core of my being with love.
I am grateful for that aspect
of human experience that happily
shares holiday song and music.

#Bach #breath #carols #charity #emotion #generosity #Handel #heart #holiday #Tchaikovsky